“If Christians are serious about improving the lives of the poor,” says William R. Luckey in this week’s Acton Commentary, “we must be serious about understanding the sources of wealth creation.” If a person merely gathers food to survive, there is no way that his standard of living will increase. All his goods are used for current consumption. But if he possesses some goods that will be used to produce consumer goods for future consumption, he possesses capital. For example,...

This weekend Protestants around the world will celebrate the 500th anniversary of Reformation Sunday, memoration of Martin Luther’s nailing his ninety-five theses to the church door Wittenberg, Germany on October 31, 1517. As Stephen Nichols says,“when we think of Martin Luther, we think of thesolas, we think of the authority of Scripture, we think of the necessity of justification by faith alone through grace alone in Christ alone. But one of the crucial doctrines of Luther is vocation.” “For Martin...

Imagine that within the same hour, two large Boeing 747 passenger jets crashed killing everyone onboard. Now consider two planes crashing every hour for an entire 24-hour period. Finally, think of the accumulated deaths of two passenger jets crashing every hour for an entire year.* The death toll from all those crashes would be roughly equivalent to the number of people who die every year from pollution. A new study published in the British medical journal The Lancet finds that...

Jerry Pournelle passed away in early September and is memorialized in this week’s “Upstream” segment of the Radio Free Acton podcast. An plished man in many fields in both the public and private sectors, he perhaps is best known as the author and co-author of a shelf-full of science-fiction novels. Among them is Oath of Fealty, a 1981 collaborative effort with Larry Niven, another sci-fi legend. The novel gained a reputation as a classic of libertarian fiction despite the fact...

What do monks and ex-cons have mon? Both have been denied the right to earn a living in their chosen fields thanks to state laws requiring people to have a state license. Occupational licensing laws require would-be employees to take hours of training at a licensed facility and pass a state test before they have the right to work. These laws apply to a vast realm of occupations, from hairdressers and cosmetologists, to midwives and landscapers. The state of New...

The number of federal regulations in the United States broke an all-time record last year. A total of 97,110 pages were added to the Federal Register in 2016. The Competitive Enterprise Institute calculates pliance costs and economic impacts of federal regulations at $1.89 trillion. This massive corpus of rules, guidances, and bureaucratic diktats spring from the pens (and keyboards) of unelected officials with little oversight from elected representatives and less from voters themselves. People of faith must scrutinize the outsourcing...

On this episode of Radio Free Acton, Caroline Roberts talks with Fr. Ben Johnson, senior editor at the Acton Institute, on the pitfalls of sin taxes. Then, on the Econ Quiz segment, Caroline speaks to Anne Rathbone Bradley, vice president of economic initiatives at the Institute for Faith, Work, and Economics and visiting professor at Georgetown University, about the impact of Amazon and whether or not it is a monopoly. On the Upstream segment, Caroline and Bruce Edward Walker talk...

One hundred years ago on October 25, the Bolsheviks seized Russia’s Provisional Government under the guidance of Vladimir Lenin. As a result of Lenin’s Marxism, up to 100 million people were killed in the 20th century. Considering the corruption and devastation Communism wreaked upon Russia, it’s important to realize the foreshadowing signs of this ideology because many are flirting with Communism today. In an article written for The Catholic World Report, Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg explains just how damaging...

After purchasing an abandoned, dilapidated pool hall in Chicago’s South Side, Living Hope Church began massive renovations, engaging a range of help, including church members, volunteer construction workers, generous donations, and random passersby. Yes, random passersby. As Pastor Brad Beier explains in Essays for the Common Good, neighborhood residents would often stop by the project looking for money or some kind of material assistance. There were also a series of consecutive break-ins and burglaries, during which expensive tools and lighting...

Justice is essential to how we go about our work, says Katherine Leary Alsdorf. In this video produced by Values & Capitalism, Alsdorf and others discuss how Christian business leaders can offer a living witness of Christ’s love by utilizing their social and material capital in love and justice. ...